IT JUST WASN'T MY DAY!!!

[cracker39]

Kerry,

Good suggestions. Thanks. I'm open to all possibilities of fixing this. Yes to most of your questions. I have WIN98 istalled first on my secondary HD, then XP was put on over that. But, if I remember correctly, using XP didn't work from it....I'll try that again first. IF I can get XP to come up from that HD, I can just keep it as my boot device until I can get the other HD usable. The secondary HD is an older 30GB device from a previous PC and my other two (primary and backup HDs) are 120GB each. Unfortunately, I didn't mirror the two 120 GB HDs. I just use the backup to store large Video files and to backup my documents (which weren't current when the problem occurred...and I know better than that, but let my backups lapse several months anyway)


I didn't try to make a boot diskette from WIN98, as I have a couple of them already. I have to go over everything again and take notes on what works and what doesn't. I was pretty upset yesterday and probably wasn't thinking as logically as I should have been.


Yes, I have my wife's PC to use to try the HD and XP CD in if it comes to that. Of course, she'd rather I didn't tear into hers...I wonder why?

[toypusher]

Keep us posted! And best of luck!

... Of course, she'd rather I didn't tear into hers...I wonder why?

I can NOT, for the life of me, imagine what ever could be her problem

[Archer_1]

My sympathies to all; I just finished spending the entire evening recovering my computer from being 'Zombied' by a mailer program that got through the firewall. My own damn fault, as I hadn't installed the update when I shoudl have. Live and learn.

[campadk]

yep..norton sucks..get free Avast antivirus

I made the mistake of updating Norton Antivus to the Internet Security version. The install sort of worked, but I had some error messages appearing. After the install our computers in the home office couldn't talk to each other anymore... for almost a year when voila! Norton did is update thing and suddenly we were back in action.

It's the price we pay to own 'PC's'. The only appliance you'll ever buy that comes with a 'works most of the time, but it's not guarantted' policy.

I'm glad Bill Gates doesn't build teardrops... we'd probably have bugs such as:

- the galley door won't open unless you upgrade your tongue box
- you can't get the stove working unless you repack your clothes
- you have to repolish the tear once in a while otherwise the wheels won't turn
- suddenly you find all the doors are locked one night and you have to sleep in the car
- your galley drawers suddenly disappear
- you keep running out of room between the tear and the road
- you have to run around the tear once or twice to be able to see it
- you have to re-install the mattress each night to get a good nights sleep
- you have to backup the tear while your in the middle of cooking.. just in case
- you tear become incompatible with your spouse
- you have to replace your battery to get access to the cabin
- you have to upgrade your wheels every 6 months
- your tear drives slower and slower each summer and it takes forever to get to your destination!
- neightbours keep telling you your camping recipes are out of date
....

[toypusher]

LMAO!

I have something like this about 'If cars were like computers', but as I stated in another post - my CRS is really flarring right now and I don't know where to look for the information.

EDIT

CRS must be in remission. I found it:

If Cars were like Computers...
At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated "If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving
twenty-five dollar cars that got 1000 mi/gal."

Recently General Motors addressed this comment by releasing the statement "Yes, but would you want your car to crash twice a day?"

1. Every time they repainted the lines on the road you would have to buy a new car.

2. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason, and you would just accept this, restart, and drive on.

3. Occasionally, executing a maneuver would cause your car to stop and fail and you would have to re-install the engine. For some strange reason, you would accept this too.

4. You could only have one person in the car at a time, unless you bought "Car95" or "CarNT". But then you would have to buy more seats.

5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast, twice as easy to drive, but would only run on five percent of the roads.

6. The Macintosh car owners would get expensive Microsoft upgrades to their cars, which would make their cars run much slower.

7. The oil, gas and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a single "general car default" warning light.

8. New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.

9. The airbag system would say, "Are you sure?" before going off.

10. If you were involved in a crash, you would have no idea what happened.

[TomS]

Here's my contribution:

If Bill Gates sold tear drops....

Your tear drop would weigh 10,000 pounds;
Bears would have full access to your galley unless you subscribe to the MicroSoft anti-bear service;
You would have to upgrade your tow vehicle every three years;
Microsoft would own a controlling interest in the DMVs of all 50 states and most Canadian provinces;
Towing a non-Microsoft trailer would result in a horrific crash;
Towing a Microsoft trailer would result in a horrific crash;
Sleeping in a parked trailer would result in a horrific crash;
Looking at your trailer would result in a horrific crash;
Thinking about your trailer would result in a horrific crash.

[toypusher]

[bledsoe3]

All of this would be funnier if it wasn't true.

[IraRat]

All kidding aside:

The new Macs will now contain an Intel chip ALSO, which means FINALLY, you PC guys can have your cake (Windows), but you'll want to taste the delicious, reliable, innovative Mac OS that some of us have been enjoying for YEARS.

[mikeschn]

I found this little tidbit...

Update: Dave Winer is reporting that:

1. Apple is not going into the software business, their operating system will not run on other vendor's hardware. So you won't be running the Mac OS on Dell, HP or IBM, for example. and 2. While Windows is not explicitly supported, they won't do anything to prevent Windows from running on their hardware.

Update #2: From news.com:

After Jobs' presentation, Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller addressed the issue of running Windows on Macs, saying there are no plans to sell or support Windows on an Intel-based Mac. "That doesn't preclude someone from running it on a Mac. They probably will," he said. "We won't do anything to preclude that." However, Schiller said the company does not plan to let people run Mac OS X on other computer makers' hardware. "We will not allow running Mac OS X on anything other than an Apple Mac," he said.

[IraRat]

The main thing is, you CAN'T run the Mac OS on currently installed Intel chips anyway. But like I said, you can certainly buy and run Windows on the new Macs if you want to.

They want to sell more machines, and this lets that happen. If the Mac OS was ever made to be functionable on PCs, it would kill them. Macs are not cheap--worth the money, but not cheap.

I'm not the techno-geek with this that my friend is, so I don't recall if the new Macs are actually going to have two separate chips, or whether it's a new kind of hybrid chip. There's also this whole issue of 64bit, which is going to be a big deal for graphic artists or anyone using real memory intensive programs. Programs that are already written to go 64 bit, like Photoshop, are supposedly going to FLY when the updated OS is written and the chips are there to support it...or SOMETHING like that.

[cracker39]

It sure is good to see that Ira is still alive and well, even if my Puter isn't. As for it's status, I'm afraid that either the CPU or MB is damaged. The boot device scan finds all hard drives. But, my BIOS auto detect doesn't find any, nor does the OS install software. The install starts, then dies saying that no hard drives can be found. And, my Maxblast drive setup CD starts, but can't find any hard drives either. That looks like the IDE controller might be fried.

When I can get up the energy to continue, I'm going to open it up, remove all devices from the MB and reseat them and try again. If all else fails, I'll try to find a shop that can run diagnostics on my Athlom CPU. If not, I'll get another MB and put the CPU on it. If that doesn't work, then I'll get another CPU and try that. I'm still open to any suggestions.

[Kevin A]

It sure is good to see that Ira is still alive and well, even if my Puter isn't. As for it's status, I'm afraid that either the CPU or MB is damaged. The boot device scan finds all hard drives. But, my BIOS auto detect doesn't find any, nor does the OS install software. The install starts, then dies saying that no hard drives can be found. And, my Maxblast drive setup CD starts, but can't find any hard drives either. That looks like the IDE controller might be fried.

When I can get up the energy to continue, I'm going to open it up, remove all devices from the MB and reseat them and try again. If all else fails, I'll try to find a shop that can run diagnostics on my Athlom CPU. If not, I'll get another MB and put the CPU on it. If that doesn't work, then I'll get another CPU and try that. I'm still open to any suggestions.

This may be a long shot, but I had something similar happen to a computer, the bios wasn't automatically locating the HD's, I could manually force the bios to find them, but after a shutdown I would be back to the same problem. Turns out it was the battery on the motherboard that controls the bios memory and the clock, replaced that and no more problem.

[TomS]

If none of the aformentioned suggestions work. Try the remedy contained Madjack's sig.

I dont' think it'll make your computer work. But, it might make you feel better.

[mikeschn]

Dale,

We have a wonderful computer store in Madison Heights.... I'll bet you could fix your problems there...

Of course I would personally recommend a new 64 bit machine with at least an Athlon 3400.

Of course, if it's a toss up between a teardrop and a computer, maybe you'd better get an old Pentium so you can surf the web, and hang out here. You'll need the rest of your money for the Squidget.... and we all want to see how that turns out.

Mike...